and appointments. There were
delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the
beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the _bizarre_, something of the
terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.
To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of
dreams. And these--the dreams--writhed in and about taking hue from
the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the
echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which
stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is
still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are
stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away--they
have endured but an instant--and a light, half-subdued laughter floats
after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the
dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue
from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the
tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven,
there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning
away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes;
and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot
falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a
muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches _their_ ears
who indulged in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat
feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until
at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And
then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the
waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things
as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell
of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought
crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among
those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the
last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were
many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of
the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no
single individual before. And the rumour of this new presence having
spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at lengt